17. Rats
"He who fights with monsters should look to it
that he himself does not become a monster.
And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche
The man known as Zip had many secrets and lived a not so easy childhood in the suburbs of New York. Such experiences, more frightening than a scary movie, would've distorted the character of anyone. After all, we are human, and suffering twists us, spoils us.
The man known as Zip wasn't spoiled. Instead of being twisted by suffering, it was him who twisted the suffering. He seemed a clown, an idiot who spent his time joking and making fun of everything, making bad jokes and taking absolutely nothing seriously. Hacking was the only talent he seemed to have. However, he, as much as any other else, was a survivor. His sense of humour was his shield, also his salvation board.
But the shields break, and the boards end up sinking.
When everything blasted, a sharp roar tore his ear. Releasing a cry of pain, he pulled the communicator away from his ear and reclined against the back of his chair, in time to see, with chilling clarity, the wave of fire and smoke flooding the numerous screens; and then half of them go black, and fill the other half with snow.
A chill ran down his spine. For a moment, he remained stiff, motionless, holding his breath. Then, the communicator was adjusted again.
He tested channel 1. "Kurtis! KURTIS! Where are you? Answer me!" Silence. Rather, a background noise, persistent, sharp. It was broken.
Channel 2. Shouted Lara's name. Several times. She didn't answer. But he noticed horrible background noises, shouts, shrieks. She could be hurt or dead.
One of the monitors was still working, showing him an indescribable horror. The installed micro camera covered the stage - or what was left, burst into splinters. And Selma was just above it at the time of the blast.
Bending over the arm of his gamer chair, Zip threw up everything in his stomach, a disgusting mass of hamburgers and fries sprinkled with Coca-Cola. Then, he stood up again and tried channel 3. "Barbara." He gasped. Stomach acids burned his throat. Suddenly, he couldn't scream. "Or Bathsheba. Whatever your name is. Please. Answer me. For God's sake, someone answer me."
And then, he heard the most beautiful voice in the world, the most beautiful words ever spoken. "I'm here, Zip. Whatever your name is." It was the voice of an old enemy, it was the voice of a rival, of a strange companion and ally, but Zip burst into tears of joy upon hearing her. "Tell... tell me what happened." He sobbed, not caring that she heard him in that status. "What... what the hell happened, fuck... nobody answers me..."
"There's no time." That woman's voice tensed and stretched like a whip. "He's here."
"Who - what?"
"Schäffer. He's here. Looking for me." She heard her breathing deeply. "He can't see me yet, but I'm behind one of the columns near the buffet. Notify the others."
Channel 1. Channel 2. Again. "They do not answer! I gotta...I ...!"
"Warn them! NOW! There's no time." And he heard her breath again. "He's coming."
Kurtis had promised Barbara he wouldn't allow Schäffer to approach her. Strange how even in the most impossible situations, the former Legionnaire managed to keep his promise. More or less. Thanks to Zip, however; for shortly after Lara regained consciousness, he managed to notify the assassin's presence in time.
One thing, however, was to know he was there, and another, to know where he was. He might be lying between the bodies to go unnoticed by anyone. That's why Kurtis wasted no time trying to find him. He looked for Barbara instead.
He found her behind a column, pale, dirty, but unharmed. She'd been too far from the blast to get hurt. They exchanged a brief look and she nodded. Then, Kurtis circled the column and looked around.
How did such a big man surprise him? Later, Kurtis would acquit himself saying that he was hurt - though superficially -, and tired, and scared, and as much as he tried to keep his head and mind cold, he didn't quite achieve it. When Schäffer appeared behind him, emerged from nowhere, or from a pile of corpses perhaps, or from under the damn eggnog with prawns, he suddenly had a wire around his throat and that merciless monster was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.
The natural reaction when you are strangled is to try to breathe. To fight, squirm, grab the choker's hands, maybe try to get hold of the wire, stick your fingers in search of some air. All of that was useless, as Kurtis well knew. One's hardly released from the wire, much less from the strangulation. In a few minutes, he would be dead. Instead, what Kurtis did was to throw his hand back, grab his opponent's testicles and squeeze them with all his strength, while discharging a tremendous heel against the choker's shin.
That did work, as he'd had occasion to check in the past. Schäffer - because there was no doubt that it was him - let out a scream and loosened the deadly grip. When turning on himself, the wire opened a painful groove in Kurtis' throat, but it was a minimal price to pay for breaking his rival's guard and throwing him back with a brutal punch in the jaw.
Even Kurtis failed to bring down the beefy German, and that being half the size of what Marten Gunderson had been. But now he could breathe - a painful gush of air, like a wave of fire that broke through his lungs among stings - and continued to discharge two, three, four punches in his stomach. He heard him howl in pain and then, gasp breathlessly, but failed to knock him down. Fucking monster.
Schäffer bent forward and charged, knocking Kurtis down with a head blow in the chest. The floor rose to receive him from behind. Then, he had his rival on him, and this time, he got the blows in the groin. "You liked grabbing my balls, huh, Trent?" The German spat a bloody phlegm on him. "Let me kick yours for a while. Should've cut them and served them for dinner when I had the chance." He aimed a punch at Kurtis' face, but he blocked him. For a moment, they struggled, the German trying to let go, Kurtis folding his arm back. A little more... a little more...
Suddenly, there was a dry, hollow blow. Schäffer's eyes, the only thing visible through the balaclava that covered his face, turned in his sockets... and collapsed heavily on him, leaving him breathless.
Behind him, still brandishing what appeared to be the broken leg of a table, a panting Barbara stared, surprised, at the unconscious mercenary. Then her expression turned fierce. "C'mon, move!" She handed an arm to Kurtis and helped him out from under the inert body. He made a gesture of pain. "Let's go! You'll lick your balls later." And gripping the communicator tightly, the woman shouted. "Hey, you! The hacker! Bring that damn van, now!"
A part of Zip was grateful to have someone else in charge again, even if it was that damn woman. As soon as he realized being of little use in front of the monitors, he rushed towards the van, a vehicle stocked with first aid materials and supplies stocked the day before. Before Barbara could yell her next order, he'd already parked in front of the entrance to the huge party tent.
No one noticed him. Fire trucks and ambulances had arrived, and the place was immense chaos. No one watched him move the van toward the back of what had been the buffet area. No one saw him, and another stout, rather badly wounded man, carrying a third bulge in the back of the van, followed by a woman in a broken party dress and shattered shoes, which she kicked off, then followed them.
And nobody saw him start the engine and move away at full speed. After all, everyone had more crucial things to deal with.
Straddling over the fallen mercenary, Kurtis worked quickly and efficiently. He folded the German's arms and legs back and tied them tightly with wires, both between each other and all the limbs, until he was bent backwards like a parenthesis. He ripped off his balaclava, bandaged his eyes tightly, filled his mouth with a cloth and sealed it tightly. Then he put the balaclava on again. He was KO.
Sitting in the back of the van, curled up in a corner, Barbara watched him work. When he finished, she noted: "You're bleeding. You should take care of that wound."
The throat cut had been relatively superficial, but very bloody. A red sea descended his neck and soaked his shirt. Without saying a word, Kurtis stripped off his shirt and then the bulletproof vest he wore underneath. Despite of which some crystals had stuck in the gaps left, and some dark and ugly bruises were beginning to be seen on his torso and back. Taking a medipack, Kurtis took care of his wounds. At one point, Barbara got up and helped him to heal and bandage the wounds on his back. He said nothing, just let her help him.
After finishing applying patches on his neck and bandaging his torso, Kurtis quickly stripped off his clothes and dressed in boots, military pants and sweater he'd prepared, but not before adjusting the bulletproof vest again, just in case. Then, he handed similar clothes to Barbara. "Undress and take this." He ordered. "On that dress you'll freeze out there."
Barbara had more than reasonable reluctance to undress in front of him, as he'd done without hesitation, but she dared not argue. However, she didn't have to worry. While she got rid of the remains of the evening dress and dressed quickly with those crude but comfortable and warm clothes, Kurtis dragged the inert mercenary towards the entrance of the van, without throwing at her a single glance.
Soon, the van stopped, and Zip slapped the methacrylate window that separated them from the driver's cabin. "We arrived." He murmured, tired and sounding kinda off.
Without a word, Kurtis opened the doors of the van, jumped out of it, circled at full speed and caught Zip when he was getting off the driver's cab heavily. Without further ado, he grabbed the African American man by the collar of his sweater, lifted him up and stamped him against the wall of the van. Zip gasped and moved his feet but was suspended two or three feet from the ground. He didn't complain or make a minimal attempt to defend himself.
Kurtis's face was scary. Red, congested, with bloodshot eyes and teeth clenched in a twisted grimace. "Explain one thing to me." He hissed, in a hoarse and broken voice, no doubt the result of the choking attempt. "Explain to me how the fuck this son of a bitch has managed to place a bomb under the fucking stage, and you haven't seen it."
Zip opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He gasped like a fish, although it was not for lack of air. "No... I dunno, Kurtis. I dunno."
A vein swelled in the left temple of the ex-legionary. "You don't?" He spat between his teeth. "Lara had a piece of that explosive device stuck in her back. She was bleeding like a pig, and my daughter was under her. MY DAUGHTER, ZIP!"He yelled at his face, spitting him. "My daughter could be dead, and she's alive because Lara was in the middle. I don't know what happened to my mother, and as far as I know, Selma can be scattered to pieces among the remains of that damn stage. And you don't know how that bomb got there?"
Zip was crying. "I don't know, boss. I don't know." He sobbed.
"Twenty monitors, ten micro cameras, four communicators, all your fucking technology... and the result is that they blew away."
"I didn't miss anything!" Zip yelled. "I didn't move from my place; I didn't stop checking at any moment. I checked the perimeter. I checked the whole area. I checked once, and again, and again. You checked too, boss!"
"I checked." Kurtis gasped. He was getting tired, but there he was, still holding him up against the van. "I checked the columns. I checked the fucking buffet table. I checked the fucking stage, from the sides and below. I checked it, checked it and checked it again. So, tell me, if you checked everything, and I checked everything, how do you think that motherfucker sneaked a bomb under our noses?"
Zip didn't answer. He dropped his head and kept sobbing.
"Enough." Kurtis noticed Barbara's hand grabbing his tense arm. "This fight is pointless. What's done is done."
Slowly, Kurtis lowered Zip and left him on the floor. The African American's knees bent like butter and he collapsed on the floor, sobbing. The ex-legionary turned his back on him and walked away in the direction of the unconscious mercenary. "Leave." He ordered them. "Don't come closer. I don't want to see you here."
No one asked him what he was going to do. It was quite obvious.
It was the cold chill that brought Schäffer's consciousness back. When he opened his eyes, the bandage had disappeared, and he could study his situation.
He was still gagged, but his clothes had disappeared. He was completely naked and sitting in a metal chair screwed to the floor, tightly tied arms and legs to it. Apart from that, he had no visible injury or damage outside the bruises and blows caused by the fight with Kurtis.
The place was in a kind of basement or strange cavity. The mercenary studied the walls around him. In some places, the wall melted with mother rock. It didn't take to be clever to guess that he was in one of the habitable cavities of the Cappadocia caves, which meant not too far from the blast site.
In front of him, sitting on a bucket turned upside down, was his rival, Kurtis Trent. He seemed calmer and colder, and of course, quite restored to health, as if the fight or the wounds of the blast had not taken a toll on him, but Schäffer could see the thick patch on his neck, which was beginning to get bloody.
In Kurtis' hands there was a combat knife, drawn from its sheath. He held it gently between his fingers, as if it were a glass object about to break, and he turned it between the fingertips. The fact he hadn't cut or prick himself with it showed his expertise with that kind of weapons.
"Gonna torture me, you son of a bitch?" Schäffer wanted to say, but all he could get out of his sealed mouth was a muffled sound. Kurtis looked up and fixed his cold blue eyes on him. "So, you've already woken up." He commented. Then, straightening up with a grunt, he holstered the knife in his belt and reached into his pocket. Then he took out an object and held it under the light of the bulb hanging over them on a wire, so that Schäffer could see it clearly.
It was a piece of metal, twisted, blackened. "I found this sunk in Lara's shoulder blade." He explained. "Not a big deal, but I suspect it's yours. Let me give it back to you."
He moved too fast for Schäffer to see him coming. With a single movement, Kurtis turned the piece in his hand and sank it with all his might into Schäffer's exposed knee, nailing it deeply between the kneecap and the meniscus on its pointed side. An animal, heart-breaking roar sprouted from the gagged mouth of the mercenary, who writhed in his chair, uselessly, for he was immobilized.
Kurtis smiled awkwardly. "I'm sorry." He murmured, as he stared at the thick thread of black blood coming down Schäffer's hairy leg. "It bothers me when things go wrong, y'know? And this thing tucked into Lara's back bothers me even more. Overall, because if not being in Lara's back, it could've gotten into my daughter, maybe at face height. And that bothers me the most of all. I consider fair enough to return it in similar terms, whaddaya think?"
Schäffer, in pain, was breathing fast, his hairy chest puffing rapidly. Despite the dense cold of the cave, a sweat film was forming on his bare skin. And suddenly, he laughed. It was a hoarse, dry laugh, muffled by the rags that filled and surrounded his mouth. "Fuck you, son of a bitch," he said, but the sound that came was barely understandable.
Kurtis didn't need any translation. He understood that language - and he knew how to respond. He leaned down, grabbed the piece of metal that still protruded from the knee, and began to twist it. The piece turned inside the wound, inside the joint. The screams got worse. The tied body shook in violent convulsions. The mercenary writhed, trying to escape. The ties were stuck in the flesh, but there was no way out. Kurtis continued to twist the piece until, given a full turn, the joint split.
The veteran German mercenary, his old torturer, passed out. Moments later, an intense smell of urine reached him. He watched the golden liquid flowing thighs and legs down, and drip down the legs of the chair, down to the floor.
An eye for an eye… Kurtis had also screamed, he had also twisted, he had also pissed himself. That was a long time ago, and if following the orders of his superiors could've served as a mitigating factor for Schäffer, after what happened that night all mercy was ruled out. Revenge was late, but it was coming.
Leaning back again, Kurtis took out the knife and, turning it between his fingers, waited patiently for his victim to regain consciousness.
The pain woke him up this time, urine and sweat dried on his skin. A pulsating, horrible, burning pain coming from the broken knee. The leg was bloody, a dense puddle under the foot. The blood seemed to have stopped flowing with the thick cold that flooded the cave, but the slightest movement would make the thin crust that was forming around the fucking piece of metal jump, as indeed happened. As he straightened in his chair, he noticed a pang and the blood sliding down the leg again.
Schäffer pierced Kurtis with his eyes. "Make sure you kill me well, son of a bitch," he said, "because if I get out of here you will cry tears of blood." But again, what came to Kurtis' ears were incomprehensible baffling.
"Must be frustrating." The ex-legionary said. "Wanting to say all those things and not be able to. I don't understand a damn of what you say, but who cares?" He leaned toward him and smiled again. "You won't speak again." Then he rose as if driven by a spring and brandished the knife. Schäffer tensed his muscles and let out a growl, staring at him. He expected Kurtis might stab him, gouge his eyes out, maybe cut his ears, or fingers. Even to castrate him. Why not? He'd threatened him a hundred times to do that, and dammit, he should've done it - but those sluts of his superiors hadn't allowed it back then. Now he regretted obeying.
However, what Kurtis did puzzled him. The ex-legionary only made superficial cuts. While he was struggling and howling through the gag, the mercenary saw his rival move around him, with the distance required so that he couldn't reach him, making slight cuts in his skin. He noticed the bite of the knife a hundred times. Superficial, long, transverse cuts, deep enough to bleed, but without sinking the blade too much into his flesh. He cut him everywhere: back, torso, belly, arms and legs, even on the face, neck and shaved head, which bleed the most. It took almost half an hour, but after this Schäffer was submerged in a wave of his own blood, bleeding for a thousand cuts.
Although annoying and painful, it was something bearable and not too serious. Therefore, his confusion increased when Kurtis wiped the knife with a cloth and put it away, quietly. Schäffer looked around - and then something caught his attention.
The bucket on which Kurtis had been sitting moved.
Confused, the mercenary thought that his weakness and pain played tricks on him. He cast a sidelong glance at the ex-legionary, who followed his gaze.
The bucket moved again, as if it had a life of its own.
"Oh, that." Kurtis smiled again, that cold, sinister smile. "I was wondering when you would notice." He leaned toward him. Schäffer would have loved to head-bump him, break his nose, some teeth, but fuck, he was still out of reach. "Surely you think this is not a big deal, compared to what you did to me." He explained. "Yeah, I know you were following orders. I've also been a soldier, and I've done sick stuff at the orders of others worse than me. I can respect that. I can also understand you taking revenge on the psychopaths who made you torture me for months, although there you have something else that bothers me: you enjoyed it, and a lot." Kurtis straightened up and ran the knife blade down his own freshly shaved cheek, smiling. "You enjoyed it because you're a sadistic sick fuck, and because you'd have done it the same, even if not commanded. You wanted to do more things to me, but they didn't let you. As for me, y'know what?" He chuckled. "I'm just like you."
He wrapped the knife and moved toward the bucket, which was still moving slightly, as if it had something alive inside. Schäffer had frozen. A terrible suspicion broke through his dull mind.
"Well," Kurtis corrected himself, "maybe not quite like you. I know how to do sick stuff and not lose a night of sleep over them. But I'm afraid to do that, y'know? I have a daughter for whom I'm a hero." His face became serious, implacable. "You've no idea of the things I'd do to you now. Just thinking of Lara bleeding in pain, and my daughter's look of terror, makes me want to turn you into a bloody pulp, and make it last a thousand years. But I'm afraid to do it. How do I look again at my daughter's face after doing something like that? I can't. I already feel quite unclean. I won't soil my hands with you anymore. You're not worth it. You're nothing but food for rats." And he kicked the bucket.
Rats. Twenty, thirty, maybe forty. Stacked under the bucket, stunned, confused, as if they had been sedated or numbed in some way. When the prison that caught them disappeared, they scattered, scared, but the camera was well sealed, well closed, and they ended up coming back and running around, circling, confused, lost.
"You got too close to my daughter in Istanbul." He heard Kurtis' voice again, as he watched, dazed, the huge rats. "To my daughter, and to Lara. You've dared to threaten them. You've dared to hurt them. They are the only good thing I have in this world, the only beautiful and pure thing in my life. You shouldn't have approached them, Adolf. It's been a big mistake. Your last mistake."
And then, without more, he turned off the light and left, barking the metal door tightly, while he turned a deaf ear to the muffled screams of his enemy, who called him, writhing, bloody, from his chair.
At first, nothing happened. The rats were confused, scared, coming out of the partial sedation and numbness to which they had been subjected. They were running around, looking for a way out, but there was no way out. With the passing of the hours, they began to be hungry. They had not fed for some time. They looked for food, but there was nothing to eat there, except for one thing.
The smell of the bloody body was very appealing. Unfortunately, it posed a challenge, because that thing seemed to be alive, and when they approached, it fought, struggled, and even emitted strange sounds that they couldn't recognize among their usual preys. But they were hungry. And with the passing of the hours, they were even more so. When they began to be really hungry, they lost their fear of the unknown.
There was only one thing they could eat.
When the first rat jumped on him, Schäffer squirmed brutally and shook it off. He did that with the second, and with the third. For a while, it served him. In that time interval, he kept shouting, howling, begging. He called Kurtis tirelessly. He didn't mind humiliating himself, asking him for forgiveness, or pleading, even if it was death.
Any death was better than that.
But, if Kurtis could hear him, he certainly didn't know. He spent his last strength in shaking away the hungry rats. Then, he couldn't scare them away anymore.
Kurtis had told Schäffer that he was food for rats. And that was exactly what he became.
Dawn in Cappadocia. The winter sun rose beautifully over the barren landscape, spreading its rays over the psychedelic rocks. Barbara climbed with difficulty a pair of slopes, until she reached the pale and haggard man who smoked looking towards the horizon. "What are you doing here?" He said dryly. "I told you to leave."
She sat beside him, ignoring him. "I sent your hacker friend back. Here he was doing nothing useful, better to find out what happened to the others."
Kurtis took another drag on the cigarette, without looking at her. "And you?"
"I'm not leaving until I see him dead."
The ex-legionary slowly turned his face and looked at her. His gaze was scary, but finally Barbara felt beyond fear. "Did you kill him?" She insisted. "I want to see him dead. You owe me."
He raised his eyebrows. "I owe you?"
She sighed, exhausted. "I saved your life when you had that monster on you. I helped you get him out of there. Damn it, I've been the bait for the whole operation. And years ago, in the Vortex, in front of Lilith, I..."
"I know what you did, and what you've done now." Kurtis crushed the cigar against the rock and added: "You don't want to see him, I tell ya."
He was surprised by the woman's dry laugh. "That's my decision, Kurtis Trent. Show me."
When he opened the door, some rats, satiated with flesh and blood, escaped at full speed. Barbara jumped and raffled them, disgusted. Then she scanned the darkness, which reeked of blood... and worse. Fluids from a human body.
Covering her nose and mouth with her hands, she followed Kurtis while stumbling. When the light came on, revealing what was in the center of the room, she was stunned, not understanding what she was seeing.
There was something sitting on a chair, or rather, tied to it. But that something was covered with rats, which moved, shuddered, crawled, plucking bits of that something, devouring it. When Kurtis gave a single clap, some jumped and walked away, scared, revealing parts of what was underneath. What was left of Adolf Schäffer.
Barbara bent and vomited loudly on the cobbled floor.
"Told ya." She heard the ex-Legionary voice. But she straightened again and took a few steps toward that thing, trying to get around the rats in her path. Then, she looked long and hard.
"Did he suffer?" She asked casually, while trying to recognize the already unrecognizable face.
Kurtis sighed. "It's been faster than expected. His heart gave in soon." He ran his hand over his face. "Honestly, I'm glad he didn't resist that long."
Barbara straightened. "Well, I don't. I wish it'd been slower. I wish he'd suffered more." And then, she spat on the body and withdrew. "You're good at this, Kurtis Trent. You have kept your word."
He didn't answer. He remained silent, watching the rats without seeing them. Then, he moved his tongue inside his mouth, feeling it bitter.
That was the taste of victory. A disgusting taste.